Friday, July 22, 2005

The "Consolation" of Conspiracy

Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard.Some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards. - Bob Dylan

"The dust hadn’t even settled after the terrorist atrocities in London and already the conspiracy theories...had begun," writes Cinnamon Stillwell in "The London Conspiracy Theories: Here We Go Again." Nevermind that settled dust also covers tracks, as unpolished first reports get squeegee'd from the record. And disregard the fact that every reconstruction of the events must posit a conspiracy of some sort, and that they are not even theories, but hypotheses.

Nevermind all that, as here they go again, baiting the genuine skeptics in the Aeon of Bizarro.

Most irksome are Stillwell's patronizing conclusions:

It never ceases to amaze me how many well-educated, otherwise rational people insist on pushing these fantasies. Unable to cope with the nihilistic and horrifying threat of Islamic terrorism, they instead turn to familiar demons.... How long these people can continue their delusions is unknown, but something tells me that a great number of them will simply have to be written off as functionally insane while the rest of us attend to the business of fighting Islamic terrorism.

In some ways I understand this need to find more comforting answers. There’s been many a day since 9/11 that I’ve wished this threat wasn’t real. But it is. At some point, all of us will have to shake off the conspiracy theories and face that truth.

I don't mind so much being dismissed as mad, so long as I'm not locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the politically insane. Though since that day came for Soviet dissidents, and the Western calender is running just a little behind, we shouldn't be surprised if our questions will eventually be addressed with a pharmacological magic bullet. Rather, what I find most disagreeable about this popular refutation of "conspiracy theory" is that such thinking is somehow comforting.

Tell me what I say is crazy, without bothering to hear what I'm saying. I'm fine with that. Hell, I listen to what I'm saying and sometimes I wonder myself. As a fellow "conspiracy theorist" recently told me, "I feel like the guy in A Beautiful Mind, minus the genius part." Adding things up which are not to be added can do that to you. It's a crazy-making world out there, once you start paying attention to it. Just don't presume to tell me how I feel about it.

And I won't presume to tell you, so you tell me: how did you feel when the floor first fell away from beneath you? When the comforting assumptions of consensus reality folded up upon themselves, and you saw the lone gunmen as cardbard figures, and you glimpsed the grinning skulls beneath the smooth skin of the killers, what did that do to your insides? When you felt the vertiginous drop, did you throw up your hands and let out a "Wheeeeee!"?

(Perhaps there are some who do. Perhaps that's what sets apart the conspiracy buffs from the rest of us. They get a rush from the horror, but it's as real and as threatening as an amusement ride. They've internalized nothing. It means nothing. And that's paranoid style.)

"Comforting answers"? I felt physically ill when I added up what I'd learned about 9/11 and I saw what I got. I didn't want it to be true, and I still don't. I want none of it to be true. If only Oswald had acted alone. But he didn't. So like it or not, here I am.

And it was only at the public execution of John F Kennedy - that is, with the eruption of conspiracy fact into public consciousness - that conspiracy theory became a disreputable subject. Until then, such talk could be heard from, and even encouraged by, some of America's most senior officials. "The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists," wrote J. Edgar Hoover. As I read Eisenhower's better-late-than-never warning about the military-industrial complex, and how Americans must remain "alert and knowledgeable" and "should take nothing for granted" in order to guard against its "acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought," I can hear Scott McClelland's rote rebuttal: "That's a conspiracy theory, Dwight, and I won't dignify that with a response. Next question - Jeff Gannon, Talon News."

There's an account by Fred J Cook, an early critic of the Warren Report, of coming up against the Left Gatekeepers at The Nation,in Martin Schotz's History Will Not Absolve Us. In 1964, Cook submitted a seven-page memorandum "tearing at the guts of the report" to Editor Carey McWilliam. He knew their editorial policy was endorsement of the findings, but he "felt that The Nation was the only magazine with sufficent independence and nerve to print the kind of article I wanted to write." After three weeks of silence, McWilliam rejected it, telling him that he could find no flaw in his reasoning, but that The Nation didn't want to criticize the Report.

A year and a half later, as criticism of the Report became more acceptable and more vocal, McWilliam relented, and published it with a disclaimer that it was only Cook's opinion, then immediately followed it up with a ridiculing piece by a university professor lambasting "conspiracy theory." The author was, in fact, a MOCKINGBIRD asset of the CIA, and later admitted in a fit of conscience to Cook's friend and fellow researcher Vince Salandria that yes, they were right, but that "The truth is too terrible. The American people would never be able to stand it."

Who's comforting who?

In a village you know to be a prison, you should question the motives of your consoling minders.

By the way, two signs for the discomforted, who may be gauging the storm signals:

I've received an email with an unconfirmed report, though from a reputedly good source, that "last week the government bought up all of the available iodine [ie, potassium iodide] in stock for treating radioactive poisoning."

The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing--that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack--but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.Be seeing you.

1503 Comments:

Anonymous said...

What?! WTF?!?

Yes, it's very comforting to have your nose rubbed in evidence and information that believing in puts you in the tinfoil hat crowd. Or worse, in the burned-at-the-stake for refusing to recant the truth crowd, a la Giordano Bruno.

And I repeat - WTF!?! Bought up all the iodine? Nuking Iran (one finger/one button no wonder the troops will be pulled out of Iraq soon)??

Bird flu please come soon and cull the hawks from the face of the earth...

Wow! I think it was James Ellroy's novel, "American Tabloid," that pulled the rug out for me. The book ends with JFK's assassination, and it posits that there wasn't a single conspiracy between organized crime, the CIA, and the FBI to kill him, but that there were a whole score of them.

I kept waiting for people to refute the book's conclusions but there really haven't been any. The sequel, "The Cold Six Thousand," by the way, ending with the RFK and MLK assassinations, is even more disturbing.

When I discovered 9/11 and the rest, visions of the great, red, burning, neverblinking Eye depicted in Return of the King kept popping in my mind, and I thought "I see you". The veils hiding the real-world forces that work for the Eye (in metaphorical sense, maybe...or maybe not) had been stripped away-and now I could see the raw, burning Eye-intent upon domination, dehumanization, and omnicide. Unpleasant to say the very least.

That dude who said consolation is hypnotized.

But, is the complexity necessary for all of this about to be swept away in the final global oil crisis? Is there enough energy to fuel this kind of thing once the oil runs out? Will the military-occult complex shatter as oil runs out? I hope so.

Learning about the world of conspiracies, secret societies and new world order plots is a bit too much like learning to speak Klingon for most people. It's too esoteric and frankly, very nerdy.I don't blame people for wanting to stay out of it.

Personally, I enjoy educating myself about the supposed puppetmasters and just how our money gets put to work. But as a sane person I cannot expect the same interest from my friends and family.

Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia was a fifth (as opposed to the four recognised in the West) category of schizophrenia diagnosed by psychiatrists in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RFSFR). This diagnosis was often applied to dissidents who were not in fact mentally ill so that they could be forcibly hospitalized in mental institutions and subjected to different treatments including powerful anti-depressants and electroconvulsive therapy.

I agree that the conspiracy theory (as opposed to the coincidence theory) mind-set is not the comforting position. The cognitive dissonance alone is sometimes too hard to take.Consider the coincidence theorists of your aquaintance--they are almost always the most intellectually challenged people around. I refer to them as the "Comfortable Cattle". Robert Anton Wilson summed up the difference between "neophiles" and "neophobes", i.e. between those who embrace and those who fear new ideas, change, etc. This can be a useful template for viewing the capacities of people who take either the conspiracy or coincidence point of view. Great blog.The number of hits you get is absolutely staggering.

I never have understood this universal fear of 'damaging my career' as an excuse for not exposing such heinous information and activities. Sure, some people will always be hesitant to endanger their careers, but why the overwhelming majority? Plenty of them are well off financially. The acts they are NOT exposing are often truly unspeakable. I just don't get it.

I guess I object to Bush using phrases like "impending doom" to describe bad knees.

Too much drama. Too many superlatives. Too over-the-top.

Lou, you would do well to study Bushisms. Boy King George is a mother lode of Freudian Slips. Oh, and study Freudian Psychology, too. When Bushie says stuff like "impending doom", it means it's on his mind. Impending Doom.

His numbers have slipped WAAAAY down, and things don't look good for Karl Rove (hey, since Rove is Bush's Brain, if Karl is fired, would that be like a lobotomy for George?) so the Regime has to come up with something to get all those truants back into the program.

"Conspiracy theories" being comforting is certainly a new one on me. When I express my thoughts concerning deeper intrigues I believe are going on beneath the surface, I am more often branded an alarmist, a "Chicken Little" declaring the sky is falling.

I agree, I find no comfort in it at all! I already bolted from the states. Anyone know a spot on ol' Gaia that might remain intact after this fiasco? I honestly can't figure out a safe place to hide! Even Antarctica has a big ozone hole over it :(

One lodestone for the 'coincidentalists' is the thesis of historian Richard Hofstedter's (sp? ?) 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics.'

The notion, iirc, which isn't entirely obviously wrong, is that it IS more comforting to decide the vagaries of a random and absurd, senseless, brutal and nasty world can actually be explained by the deliberate actions of 'them,' whomever 'they' are said to be.

I am not at all sure this is true. Personally, the notion that so much is orchestrated by a top echelon holding such immense power to arrange such things is itself entirely sufficient to scare the beJesus out of anyone believing it, and must approach the alleged terror implicit in a view that such things happen in chaotic and random ways.

Just to make one distinction in conspiracy theorizing, however, there is the monistic vs. pluralistic difference: whether there is a single over-arching conspiracy, puppet-mastering all the others, or whether there is a bewildering mix of conspirators with different agendas, who sometimes act in concert, and other times act against other conspirators' goals.

There MAY be something to a Hofstadter-like claim that those who subscribe to monistic theories have an implicit need to organize the otherwise incoherent cacaphony of the many (hundreds? thousands?)known or suspected conspiracies, to draw some order out of the chaos.

(Apologies in advance if I've mischaracterized Hofstadter's piece, which I haven't read in decades.)

The whole deception-based house of cards will collapse from within, when the well-meaning-but-duped wake up. But what will it take to wake them up?

When someone they love gets put away in a prison with no trial...when one of their own is killed, and they finally figure out that 'freeing the Iraqi's' wasn't really the point...

But awakening carries with it the personal responsibility to DO something about the heinousness you've just become aware of...and that's where most people cave. Especially in a world where those who stand up are, er, let's just say "not treated very well."

And not all have to awaken. Only enough of a critical mass to change the game.

And rest assured, it IS a game. A game with very serious consequences.

As the deaths of tens of Millions from Aids attest. You know, the 'weaponized pathogen' whose taxpayer-funded development flowchart may be read by anyone who wishes with the click of a mouse?

Soon they will bring back the draft - bring it on! That will wake up a bunch of folks whose lives are currently undisturbed enough to let what's going on pass by. Once personally involved, they'll have decisions to make.

I think we're going to make it to awakeness. I just hope it doesn't cost to many more lives to get there.

p.s. Between psychological and electromagnetic and pharmacological mind-control, the hammerlock on the people may be too strong - to speed things up (and save herself) Mother Earth may soon shake herself 'like a dog shaking off fleas'...

There is some interesting psychological research on the perception of randomness and contingency judgment (i.e., attribution of causality) that might be relevant to issues raised here. To summarize briefly, humans are predisposed to see patterns or detect causality even when the data are random (in a statistical sense). Thus, we have a bias for detecting a pattern or causal relationship even when one may not be present. Of course, this does not imply that 'conspiracy theories' are necessarily wrong, just that they are likely very difficult to confirm or reject with a reasonable degree of confidence.

Every year i go through immigration at LAX once or twice while traveling to conferences (i teach psychology at a university in New Zealand - which might be the safest place to be these days!). There has always been a portrait of the president visible on the wall. First it was Clinton, then Bush. I was very surprised (and alarmed) this year to find that a similar one of Cheney was now there too. Just a coincidence? Maybe, but I don't think so!

I've received an email with an unconfirmed report that "last week the government bought up all of the available iodine in stock for treating radioactive poisoning."

Just a thought--iodine is a primary ingredient in the making of meth, from what my grandma says. As such it is a "reportable" activity for anyone to buy it in certain amounts or in conjunction with certain other chemicals. Furthermore, there has been a minor theme in the MSM the past couple weeks about meth being the #1 new drug scourge in America, so it is high on the Feds list to crack down on it soon (is that a pun?)....

That leads me to wonder if perhaps the "government buying of iodine" might just be a misinterpretation of some type of drug op that is going into effect.

We’re so lucky you’re writing, Jeff! A world without conspiracies is just, well, not my world. It’s the nature of things.

Great story about Fred J. Cook and Carey McWilliam. For a couple of years in the 1970’s I was in touch with Fred constantly. I was promoting a film documentary on the parallels of government, and Nixon’s, dealings with Alger Hiss, and the bugging and surveillance of the Watergate events. As I was formulating the idea to do something along these lines, Alger Hiss himself actually wrote an editorial in the Boston Globe and New York Times titled, appropriately for me, “My Six Parallels with Watergate,” referring of course to the title of Nixon’s book, My Six Crises, of which the first was none other than Hiss.

So I contacted Cook among others, and interviewed him in 1973 at his home about his extensive knowledge of the Hiss case, as well as Nixon, both of whom he wrote about extensively over the years.

Fred was extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about his subjects, and he was able to paint detailed pictures of the exact consistencies of how the FBI used tactics in the Hiss case that were being repeated all over again during the leaks and dirty tricks of Watergate.

I also managed to convince Hiss to meet me in person, even though at that time he had not granted a formal interview to anyone. Over a period of time in discussions with him, I came top the confirmed conclusion that I was right from the start—that he could not have been involved in any handing-over of documents to Whittaker Chambers, or anyone else for that matter, in order to give the Soviets any inside information. Regardless of the lack of government evidence, and the fact that the supposed documents in question—mundane shipping reports--were available to the Russians who were our allies, despite being classified, Alger Hiss just didn’t have lying on his mind. He was steeped in the American legal tradition, Ivy-League “patrition” back ground—clerked for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—aspired to be high up in the State Department, if not Secretary of State. He referred to Trumanin our conversations as Harry, (called FDR "Rooselevelt"). I was impressed with the history, but I didn't think this was very good spy material. Not to me anyway — I thought he was arrogant, condescending, aloof and snobbish, but really not a commie wannabe.

The conspiracy against Hiss was mind-boggling, down to government forgery of documents by an old typewriter which they claimed Hiss used in the 1930’s to copy the classified documents for Chambers. Then the FBI planted the actual typewriter for Hiss’s brother Donald to stumble across, despite 200 FBI agents combing DC flea markets to try to find it and coming up empty-handed…

Bush, Rove and co. have nothing on these classic characters out of an old film-noir movie, shadows and bad dialogue included. Fred Cook had them all pegged, and wrote brilliantly about them.

Oh, just to follow through on your post—before I ever met Hiss and Cook and before the days of Watergate, I was “lucky” enough to meet Congressman Gerald Ford in his office. My poly sci professor at Johns Hopkins happened to write a treatise about how Ford won the election for minority leader of the house, and took our small class to meet him. When Congressman Ford asked if there were any questions—and I’m sure he thought we’d want to know about his work in congress--I raised my hand intently. Pointing to the large bookshelf with the heavy volumes labeled “Warren Commission” on it, I said simply, “Congressman, in light of the conspiracy theories practically proving that Oswald did not act alone, do you still believe in the conclusion of the Warren Commission, in those volumes, that there was only one lone assassin?” His answer was, as it has always been, by rote I think, that he was very proud of his work on the Warren Commission and stood behind it 100%. At least I asked. So much for field trips.

So thanks for the Cook reference, Jeff, and keep up the wonderful dot-connecting. There’s more than meets the eye than just what’s on the videotape, I know!

Jeff, A really excellent post. However, I'm a little surprised that you take umbrage at Stillwell's column. Afterall, what would you expect? Don't we all live everyday immmersed in a society of willfull ignorance and naivety? Ms Cinnamon is simply spreading the official propaganda meme viruses, either by design, or simply because she is severely infected with this communicable disease. You are right on in pointing out the absurdities of her comments. But the absurdity is clever, which leads me to wonder if it is by design. And if it is, would that be any surprise?McClelland's flip response was an obviously intentional perfidious parry by a practiced and professional propagandist. I am also a little surprised that you pass on a very pertinent, albeit "unconfirmed report" without even a reference.

The link regarding the contingency planning vis-a-vis Iran led to an interesting discussion thread at the TPMCafe. Here is a link from the comment thread to an opinion article by Scott Ridder, "former Iraq weapons inspector", that "the US war with Iran has already begun".

In the making of a conspiracy theorist, what is cause and what is effect?

I was a little kid in the early 50's, at the height of McCarthyism. Although they never let on to me about it at the time, my parents were seriously scared. They were afraid that HUAC would get a hold of a left-wing mailing list with my mother's name on it. They were afraid when my friend Danny Gorney's father was called up before HUAC. They only told me these things in the last few years -- but back then, I was seriously scared, too. I just didn't know why.

I used to watch the Howdy Doody show, until there was a mock election in 1952 between Howdy Doody and Phineas T. Bluster. I was terrified that Mr. Bluster would win, but to vote, you had to send in a Wonder Bread label, and my mother would have died before letting a loaf of Wonder Bread into the house. Instead, I did the only thing I knew how to do and permanently stopped watching Howdy Doody.

I stopped watching Superman, too, in the middle of an episode where mobsters got their hands on a mind control machine and were using it to zap anyone who was about to testify against them. (I recently checked online and found that the episode ran just three days after the November election.) For years after that, I couldn't get to sleep unless I was holding one hand over my forehead. Not that I believed in mind-control rays, you understand, any more than I believed there were really dinosaurs under my bed. I just felt safer that way.

When they took my 1st Grade class to the home of someone whose family had a tv to hear Eisenhower's inaugural address, I couldn't bear to watch. I asked if I could use the bathroom and then hung around in the hallway until it was over.

For decades, that period of my childhood was a mystery to me. By the time I was about 10 and starting to follow current events, the McCarthy era was over and the world was all bright and normal. It was easiest to believe that stuff was just one more set of childhood fears, like being afraid of dogs and horses and spiderwebs.

Except that it didn't seem like the same kind of fears. It was altogether more bizarre and more paranoid. I wondered at times if there was some sort of repressed trauma in my own life to account for it -- but I remember my childhood in excruciating detail, including all the painful bits, and there was nothing there to match.

It's only in the last few years that I've found the objective correlatives to match those fears -- and those correlatives have all been out there, in the world of politics, and not in my personal life.

I've learned that the US was not in the grip of some strange collective hysteria around 1951-53, but that McCarthyism was being carefully stagemanaged as a means of destroying the power of the left wing to press for extension of the New Deal.

I've learned that US foreign policy was under the control of men with names like Dulles and Harriman who had no belief in democracy but were set on creating a world to the liking of American businessmen.

I've learned that the CIA was playing games of propaganda and mind control on its own citizens.

And I've learned that the people who were doing these terrible things all knew each other and shared common goals and were by and large working in concert.

Conspiracy theory? Hell, yes! I'm sure that my parents (or at least my mother -- my father is far more of a conventional liberal) already knew a lot of this back in 1952. But they would never have thought of discussing it with a five year old, so I just picked up the fears without the explanations. I've had to very gradually discover the explanations for myself.

Now, I can't prove to anyone that I wasn't just a crazy five year old -- that I had an accurate perception of events then, spent the next 35 years desperately trying to believe that the world was largely ruled by its sunlight side (with only brief, passing eruptions from the dark side), and have finally achieved a far saner and more integrated approach to life by accepting that what I feared in 1952 was in close correspondence with the actual facts of the times.

But I don't have to prove it to anyone else. I know myself, I know my own life, and I trust my perceptions of the world around me. If those perceptions make me a conspiracy theorist, so be it. It works for me.

To add to Steven Lagavulin's remark about the use of iodine in making meth, I'd wonder if that form of iodine would the one wanted anyway.

It's potassium iodide that blocks the uptake of radioactive particles into the thyroid, and I believe it's the first line of defense when there is going to be problems with radioactivity. It's only recently that many communities decided it would be a good idea to have sufficient stocks of potassium iodide stockpiled in case of a radioactivity release at a nearby reactor, rather than waiting to get it right during an emergency.

I never had any trouble believing the worst of our handlers, probably because I came from a family where there was sexual and emotional abuse so that the idea that good old Uncle Bob could smile at dinner then rape you at night and threaten you if you cried was just the way it was.

Among all the other tragedies, I fear eventually that many people who are awake and thinking will have to make agonizing choices. If you know it's time to run, and your spouse or other family member or significant other or best friend thinks you've sheared the last thread off your last screw, do you stay with them or do you run and 'sauve qui peut'?

All my adult life I have had dreams of having a short time to pack everything of value to me and flee, or lose it all and my life. Just this past week I decided to start parceling out the material items that are important to me to people who can use them, so that I won't have to do that horrible triaging. So all I will have to do is grab one duffel and my cat and make a run for it.

My friends shake their heads and laugh about my paranoia, my belief in conspiracies....I also dreamt a month or so ago about being on a train pulling away from people behind barbed wire, one of whom was my best friend. I don't know if I was being saved, or going to a worse fate than his; when I saw "The Pianist" several years back in which the protagonist narrowly escapes ending up on a train to Auschwitz, I told myself they may well get me but I will not go passively, clutching my suitcase and a handful of family photos. I'd rather end up like the end of "Easy Rider."

Because, Billy, we DID blow it, my generation, the boomers.

We had the recent historical example of McCarthy, we faced Nixon and his henchmen ourselves and fell for the canard that his resignation ended the crisis. We didn't stand up to them like mensches and make them pay for the deaths of JFK, RFK, MLK and so many more, and now we're facing the BushCo crime family in an era when technology gives them powers Tricky Dick and Joe and J. Edgar only dreamt of.

Sauve qui peut, mes amies, sauve qui peut. I hear there's a Free French garrison over in Brazzaville we could join, and live to fight another day.

Cassandra's mentioning of her dream prompts me to add a dream of mine. I recently dreamt I was being inducted into a concentration camp. It was a detailed dream for me who dreams rarely. I have never had a dream anything like it before. I was in a group of ordinary citizens being escorted on foot down a road leading to the camp, which was away from any main thoroughfare. The military escort was led by a young man of about 28 or so. He was very proficient, professional, and polite. We were given to understand that this was necessary for our safety, and we would be well cared for, until whatever the crises was over. The camp structures were spare and fairly new. It was when I needed and asked for asperin, and the request was put off with a polite but vague excuse, that it sunk in that I was a prisoner totally at the mercy of my captors. The weird thing is the time I had this dream. It was during the wee hours of the early morning of July 7th. Accounting for the time zones, it must have been sometime around early to mid morning in London. When I awoke I had a strong feeling that the dream was significant. Later, when I saw the news about London, I immediately thought of the dream, and I am afraid I understand the connection. So, does this qualify me as a bona fide paranoiac?

I remember reading long ago about some Jews in 1930's Germany who could percieve where things were going, and made timely preparations and departed the country before the doors closed. And I thought, why were there so relative few? Why wasn't there a veritable exodus? Were they just not paying attention? Were they trying to not be paranoid? Or was it just the deer-in-headlight effect? Were they just too busy with daily circumstances? I suppose they mainly thought it was just a mess that would eventually straighten out.

Or are they a meme that is so common in the circles that people who read this type of forum tend to associate with, and thus gets room to expand in the night when barriers to shared consciousness are lower?

Stillwell's commentry is meant to quieten the nerves of those out there who have taken the comfort option but are becomeing increasingly uncomfortable with it. Stillwell turns it around for them so they can project their discomfort at their "comfortable" decision onto the "conspiracy theorists" and restore their equilibrium. Putting the world aright again i.e. upsidedown.It's all about comforting the "comfortable".

German Jews . . . the ones who got out were by and large the ones with money.

My best friend in high school was the daughter of wealthy German-Jewish refugees. She used to say that her mother's family considered the Rothschilds nouveau riche. There was some sort of family connection to the Guggenheims. Her grandmother's circle would sit around and gossip about how Henry Kissinger was a bad son because he didn't phone his mother often enough. That sort of background.

They got out easily. I think her mother was sent out through Spain. Not only did they get out, but they were able to place all their assets into friendly hands and go reel them back in after the war.

It isn't that simple for the rest of us.

All through my teens, I used to have bad dreams about running away from the Nazis. Usually, I was trying to escape over the mountains into Switzerland. Then once in my 20's, I dreamed that I was back in the past, sitting at a dinner table with well-dressed people who were casually making Nazi-like remarks, and I stood up and told them off for their inhumanity.

just as i come to trust this place more, because of the solution to the white tractor-trailer mystery, it disappoints me by having something like the president warning of impending doom...to someones health for not exercizing. that's scary, i suppose a good example of context, and the importance of following up on what you're told.

i am very curious why jeff? included that in the post since he had to have known the context. that alone makes me question everything i've read here. it's sad that i seem to be the only one wondering this.

face it, our society as a whole is incapable of thinking for itself. you dangle a big enough carrot in any of our faces and we'll ignore impending doom. instead of focusing on the cause(s) of the problem we focus on symptoms, at best, some focus on whatevers told to them by liars.

but i think it'll get worse before it gets better. 'they' can wave it in our face now, everyones dumbed down to blind faith in 'authority'. theyve made us believe we're incapable of taking care of ourselves. no one wants to say whats true, it's all terrorism this and terrorism that. it's as if people are unable to understand or admit, that terrorism is the RE-action to what WE are have done/are doing not vice versa. every last detail of our present situation is the result of our blind support for israel. until we fix that, we can count on unending disaster for us to sit around and speculate on.

oh, and about the dreams of concentration camps. right before y2k i had alot of dreams about nukes going off in cities. havent had them since. but has anyone 'officially' commented on what the camps theyre building now are for? and has anyone found them on google maps yet?

"i am very curious why jeff included that in the post since he had to have known the context. that alone makes me question everything i've read here."

If my misjudgement has caused you to question everything here, then I'm happy I made it. Because I don't want anyone to take my word for anything. I hope to provoke thought, and I don't want my own thoughts to be adopted uncritically. And I'm grateful when my thinking is sharpened by good criticism.

The reason I included it is because I discovered the quote coincidentally with the reports of iodine hording and Cheney's plans for Iran, and I let those stories recontexualize Bush's words for me in a way that effaced the original meaning. I shouldn't have let that happen. I'm sure visions of apocalypse dance in his head all the time, and that he relishes the prospect of being the "Armaggedon President," but because that's true, there's probably no reason to read more into his words here. (And besides, I'm sure he's kept well out of the loop on these matters.)

As I said a few days ago, sometimes the dots we mean to connect are just spots before our eyes. I'll edit the body of the post to reflect that.

This blog has such a great community around it--great comments on this subject! For a long time, since 1967 as a matter of fact, I've brought up the following with people: "we will get nowhere unless we build alternative institutions and networks that begin to supply people with basic needs for food, shelter, clothing and above all community and meaning." Well, I didn't say it in quite that way but it is a distillation. Even with people who allegedly understand what the SubGeniuses call "the Conspiracy" there is only interest in investigating the fact it exists (obvious) and relatively little interest in building up an alternative. I believe there are good reasons for this that have to do with a deeper truth, i.e., we contain that Conspiracy within us like Frodo's Ring.

In a nutshell, I believe it is our karma yoga to build communities (not refuges) that seek to work together. I believe that spiritual practice (essentially practices that strengthen our ability to not only face the truth about the outside world but ourselves as well) is the foundation of any possible community at this time. Either we start working towards inner peace and truth or we lose the outer battle. As a practical matter, those of us who share the basic insights of this blog have no other option, brute force and weapons won't do it only higher magic and I don't mean the Crowley version either but the perennial one documented by the ancients and still alive in the hearts of many great teachers. (I just started a blog (http://thispresence.blogspot.com/ that tries to deal with some of this stuff).

One more thing, the way the State went in an executed someone on the London subway should, I hope, signal us that something is happening here and what it is is precisely clear.

Thanks for the post. It got me thinking about how I feel about losing my illusions - e.g. realizing that 9/11 was an inside job.

When I lose an illusion, I feel lighter. I feel less or no fear. The fear underlying the illusion goes away and pragmatism takes hold. I see and think more clearly about what I can really do about these truly awful situations (often not much).

I feel more free to do act on a personal and political level because I'm no longer watching the show that is designed to keep me in fear and illusion.

I still feel the discomfort, the sadness, the frustration, but I don't feel the fear after losing an illusion.

I do think spirituality helps too during these times. I wish more people spent less time in fear and more time develping their spiritual side.

"Leftists" want to argue "structurallY"...that is, it is the system that is at fault. Well, I agree. But EVERY decision that is made, EVERY action that is taken, is taken by human beings. Real people with names.

I'm also quite fascinated by the Alexander Cockburn's of the left. Cockburn, for example, could, more readily than I, rattle off dozens of US interventions all over the world by means of covert funding to bad guys or direct CIA involvement in coups and assassinations. But for this brand of leftist, something magical happens at our borders. Something, my working theory is elves, prevents such "conspiracies" from actually being carried out within the US.

This is why I take Cockburn with a grain of salt. He is the best writer of his type, but there's a big blind spot there...and I have a sad and anxious feeling that it's not simply oversight.

There is nothing “nerdy” or purported to be “nerdy” in researching/understanding HISTORY! The fact that we can exercise a greater understanding of events by asking relevant, incisory and occasionally uncomfortable questions should never, NEVER implicate us as anything less than sane!. This isn’t THEORY! The Maine blowing up in harbor and used as a catalyst to war is not a theory! The CIA coup in Chile vs. Allende is not a THEORY! Guatemala is not a theory. Panama is not a theory! Mossadeq in Iran is NOT A THEORY! JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcom X…NOT THEORIES! The idea of grand conspiracies IS NOT NEW! Ask a Roman! Those who study history might conclude that the murder of Jesus Christ was a conspiracy! How long has the public been told not to look behind the curtain? Long enough that they don’t see a curtain anymore, just a wall. An impenetrable wall propped up by there on discountenances, their own unwillingness to ask the daring, if not completely reasonable questions of “who done it?”! Until an authentic perpetrator is found, I will continue to ask what some consider “outrageous” or even “non-sensical” questions until death silences me. That is not a herald to a greater truth or a promise I keep with anyone but myself. I find it necessary in this life to see things as they are, not as others would like me to see them. If my vision is blurred, it is only because of the constant debris being tossed at my eyes!

"It is not unusual for those at the wrong end of the club to have a clearerpicture of reality than those who wield it."--Avram Noam Chomsky

There, I've said it. Those two syllables run constantly through the flow of my thoughts, and I have not actually told anyone before now. But. I'm scared. My stomach churns as I listen to the news. My heart races as I read the internet, searching for clues and truth and information. I look at my children and feel a rush of emotion as I want to protect them and have this horrible feeling that they will experience things I would never want them to experience, and I think to myself, "Just give them a few more days of normalcy, don't let them see your fear, don't make them afraid." And when my son said to me a few days ago he doesn't believe he has a future - humanity won't survive the next decade, I forced myself to tell him a lie, "No, you're too young to be thinking like that, leave that fatalistic thinking to the old people. You and your generation, you are our future and we need you to start planning for it now and fix all our mistakes." And I'm sitting here now, typing all this, with tears streaming down my cheeks, because I'm afraid. And sometimes I wonder if I've not lost my mind, and maybe things aren't as bad as I think they are, and won't get as bad as I think they will. Every generation thinks they will be the last. But, I, have this feeling that things are going to get much worse before it ever gets better, and many of us won't be alive to see the shift at the end of the bad. And I'm afraid.

I remember after the 2000 presidential elections reading some comments about how it all went down in Florida. Some lady from Sweden was commenting on the the unholy Bush family connections, could not believe any Americans would actually think all was done on the -up-and-up, considering Bush Sr role in the CIA and Jeb's goon squad of state troopers blocking access to Black voters. But most still want to believe that it was politics as usual and nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the people that believe that are more right than they know.

I gave up fear 2 weeks ago. The whole purpose behind all the events from both sides is to make us live in perpetual terror. I chose to give it up. They no longer control me. The blinders fall off and I am free.

I love these post that actually humanize the "conspiracy theorist". They're wonderful tools for helping to puncture the dominant world-view because the more we talk about the kind of world-view transformations that most of us here are going through, the more all the those average folks that can't quite quiet that voice in the back of their minds that's saying "something's not right here" will realize that they're experience the same thing. Maybe it's just me, but in my case it started with "letting go" of the official world-view, and then just opening up to that universe of possibilities. "Debunkers" like to focus on the "absurd" details of some particular conspiracy theory as a reason for average folks continue their subscription to the official world-view, but for me it's been mostly about just letting go of that rigidly defined mental box. I haven't found enough answers yet to latch onto a new one. Just lots and lots and lots of unanswered questions. Most of them scary ones.

Gale (12:08pm)If you weren't meant to know these things you would not have found this site,We're all part of something very large going on.The secret is to be like little children.Face your challenge in the knowledge that you are not alone, and that all you have to do is to TRY YOUR BEST.Have you read Scott Peck?

anonymous, you ask why so few got out of Nazi Germany....I hope at some point in the near future you are not still asking why so few got out of the US.

You are seeing around you why people don't follow that instinct that says "Go now before it's too late." They don't want to believe it's true, they listen to people who tell them they're wrong, they LOVE people who don't want to run from comfortable passivity into exile. Or as Starroute says, they just don't have the cash. There's also the fact that you can't just decide to live in some other country. You need a visa, and they don't last indefinitely. You may want to apply for citizenship, but they may not want you for one reason or another--your race, your age, your occupation.

Do you think either Canada or Mexico would stand up to US pressure to return those who fled to avoid being sent to 'relocation' camps? I don't.

Do you know that all that has to happen is declaration of a health emergency and the president can order you quarantined, relocated, forcibly vaccinated or otherwise treated, or SHOT if you resist? That's not tin hat stuff. Now do you see what this avian flu may actually be? An excuse to round up dissidents. If you say "Hey! I'm not sick, I'm not going with you" they CAN execute you summarily.

Kinda like the guy on the London tube, who was definitely a bomber, no wait, not one, sorry about that.

Dreams End, I have read quite a bit of theorizing about Chomsky and other left 'gatekeepers'--that they've cut their own 'separate peace' deals that they can say this and this but not that, so when someone says that, they oppose them just like the right. I don't know if it's true, but it provides an elegant answer to why these people go only so far in following the consequences of what they supposedly believe.

Occam's razor. Cui bono (who is not a child of Sonny and Cher :D).

Back in the 1930s people were pretty much limited in what they could find out about what was actually going on, and in their ability to find likeminded people to share knowledge with. We have no such excuse. History will judge us far more harshly if we just sit and wait for them to pick us off.

Alternatives? Exile, or stay and start a resistance NOW.

What say you, shall we become the Maquis? The White Rose (who were hanged for trying to wake the German people up)? Or go abroad and start emigre communities there from which someday we will return like Lenin in the sealed train to the Finland Station?

Google some photos of children at Auschwitz on their way to be murdered and burned. Or worse, tortured and experimented on by Mengele. Or used in child brothels. Or skewered like shishkebab on the end of a bayonet.

WAKE UP!

We need to be ADULTS who take responsibility for our fate in our own hands. Scott Peck does a good job of delineating the People of the Lie and how to spot them. I'm not sure he's got a program for defeating them when they hold near-absolute political power.

number 46 in the comments section, I wonder where my thoughts will go... Do you believe you are different than anyone else? Easy quesion right? We are individuals. Not so fast. Maybe in the smaller picture you have hopes and dreams of you're own; a girl/guy you call your's. But what about that bigger picture, the one where you are labeled a canadian, an american, the one of many a londoner in the wake of a bombing. Maybe you populate leeds. Maybe, but do you think london's population is the same as osaka? Tehran? Do you think people want to live in peace all over the world? Is there one war mongering race, (pretended country), that you can say as an eyewitness to events you saw carry out a massacare? Without regard? Without dispair? Without feeling the pain that you yourself feel? I look around, and I see the very monsters who populate every station from the white house to 10 downing street to queens park to militaries to police to my workplace, my classroom, my local bar. America the great? Ask you local corporation just how much poison is reasonable. Ask Joe in accounting who works for Monsanto just how evil is genetic engineering?, Does it pose the same risks to me as it does those rats which now have lymphoma? Those very monsters drive on the highways beside me. They like the status quo. Ever try and stand out? Ever try and stop people on the street? You're crazy the instant you talk to a stranger, paranoid. Individuals huh? No I don't think so. Proud of God and country? I dont believe in silliness. Its too horrible they confide, the people wont be able to handle it. The truth is we are monsters, we, we the people who kill, maim, rob, look the other way, poison each other, lie and cheat, we hurt ourselves and claim to be better than that person there. You want the world so bad, take it. Ill be glad to be done with it.

This comments thread is blowing my mind. The dreams being related, the fears we are experiencing, the raw feelings and emotions, I can relate to all of the above. Gale's comment broke my heart, Antiaristo bolstered me, and Cassandra gave me the slap in the face I needed.

I have read Scott Peck and found his works to be helpful guides in avoiding and dealing with The People of the Lie. But I agree with Cassandra's statement "I'm not sure he's got a program for defeating them when they hold near-absolute political power." Well, Scott had better get back to the keyboard and figure out something more concrete. We need a map for finding our way out of the Dead End Street.

We need a strategy.

And we need a guiding light, a real leader who is not bought and paid for by Big Business.

I just wanted to weigh in here because it is a truly edifying and strengthening thread and a meaningful one.

I am in this struggle as a "second generation" warrior for peace.

My father worked with the antifascist underground in Europe and was involved with the resistance.

He died many years ago (he was about forty when he was doing his thing) but he schooled me as much as he could on what we are up against.

The fascist phoenix now rising is the Fourth Reich which was planned by the Bushes and their collaborators who put and kept Hitler in power in the 1920's and 30's and '40's. Many were WASPY Ivy League Americans from predomonantly Anglo-German lines (who formed alliances with whomever served their purposes)

The truly frightening thing is the parallel to 1933 Germany: the undoing of the German Constitution, the 9-11 like Reichstag Fire, the erosion of rights with the backing of the terrified people, the propaganda and lies, and the ultimate aim: global fascist and brutal hegemony dominated by the Nordic "supermen" for two thousand years.

That was the plan when Hitler cut his deal with the Americans (including the Bushes) in 1933-34 and what is happening now is the reimplementation of a new Reich designed in the 2930's by the same families and corporate financial entities who were Hitler's "angels".

Everyone in the intelligence community knows this. The generals are generally generals because they follow orders blindly and want to protect their careers and their lives. The fascists at the top know what they are doing and have purged any renegades from their midst in the intel community.

BUT , there is hope. These men in charge (and their few female collaborators, are blinded by their necrophilic lusts and their tunnel vision for the filthy lucre. Their greed is ultimately exposing them to the light of day and the internet makes it possible for the info to go around the world in an instant.

We have to keep driving at this with sharing info, sharing ideas, staying active, never relenting.

It is a classic war of attrition and the Bushzis cannot ultimately win: they are too few and too crooked to keep from pissing the whole world (and even their collaborators and underlings) off.

Cheney will ultimately be dragged of in a perp walk just as Agnew was, and the Bushes will do their best to pardon all their cronies and zombie killer functionaries like Conmdi Rice -- BUT the entire world will NOT allow these fascists to continue on their path to global self-destruction and annihilation.

It is critical that we maintain a spiritual and pacifist stance while we march fearlessly in the spirit of satyagraha to our deaths if necessary to ptoect the lives of ourt children and future generations.

There is no greater love...

especially when we are doing it for the children of our planet.

We may have to die for it to happen, but I happen to be one who believes that as long as we maintain a sense of love and goodness in what we do our deaths will be painless and joyful, with the knowledge that we did what we could to save the planet and all her children.

There is no sadness in this if we believe that the righteous will be rewarded and our souls will live on infintely in the bosom of the Creator and the souls of the cruel (especially those who harm children and the innocent) and the abominable (those who commmmit these heinous abominations, especially while they invoke the name of the Divine) will have their souls eternally snuffed out forever from the creation.

They will be nothing but a bad memory and we will be blessed because we did not adopt the ways of the evil ones.

PS - Re: the radiation stuff. I have been in that struggle a long time too.

Buy some kelp or kelp tablets, sea salt, seaweed, or even a buncha cans of tuna fish.

If there is a nuke problem (leaks, dirty bomb, etc), stuff your face with this stuff , make tuna sandwiches, eat some sea salt, take the kelp tablets --- Also drink pkenty of milk, ice cream, anything to protect you from Strontium 90 which mimics calcium and gets absorbed by the bones and teeth.

If you have enough calcium and iodine in your sytem at least your internal organs will not take such a severe hit,.

For burns keep aloe on hand (I buy it at the bodega asnd keep some in the freezer) both internally and externally it will protect against radiation burns (and Andy turned me on to Turmeric just before he passed, for all cancers, but especially to protect the skin) so get some curry too and throw it in the freezer.

If something bad happens, eat up quick and make your getaway the best you can.

I wrote a screenplay about this once and advise everyone to have a suped up motorcycle stashed somewhere, cause the highways will NOT be passable by cars like they were in the dumb scenes from war of the worlds.

My dad had a motorcycle in Nazi occupied France (Vichy) and it helped and was cheap to drive.

Anyone willing to question country? Lysander spooner? Marc stevens? To begin to understand youre freedoms you should begin in you're self. The government is a fraud, the bank is a fraud, the school is a fraud, The religion is make believe, it is a fraud.

This shit is gonna blow, and sooner you we think I bet. I'm watching David Frum interview Victor Navasky, publisher and editorial director of the Nation, on CSPAN 2 right now. to discuss his new book. Frum kept brining up conspiracy theory and ask Navasky if he was worried about parts of the left believing in theories with an anti-Corporate and anti-Semetic flair and that seemed to provide compelling explanation for how the world works (or basically the stuff that the left has stumbled into since 9/11. There's a lot down that rabbit hole). Frum definately seemed a little on edge when discussing the topic. There was a sense of urgency. Navasky gave a more tinfoil-friendly than I was expecting.

Then Frum also went to bring up the connections between the Nation, and blue-blooded Wealth, (he listed off the Rockerfellers, and Morgans, etc).

I don't know if anyone will get down this far in the comments, but I wanted to share a song that is sung by a friend of mine. He wrote this about his favorite revolutionist, Che Guevara. This comment thread reminded me of this song, for many reasons that will become clear if you listen to it.Just click on the link below.Perfect SoldiersMay we all have such courage.

Pacifism...no. Sorry, can't agree there. I admire pacifists, and will be happy to compose eloquent and moving eulogies for them, but I plan to fight.

A pacifist response to Hitler would have meant we'd be speaking German now...or, as I'm in California, Japanese.

As for leaders...again, no. We need to stop looking to leaders and experts and start taking care of ourselves. No white knight is going to ride in on a charger and save us. If you read about the people who survived the darkest times in WWII one thing stands out: they took responsibility for their own fate into their own hands. My heroes are the Warsaw Ghetto fighters who held out longer than the whole of Poland fighting house to house against tanks, and then escaped through the sewers--chest deep human waste--to disappear into the forests and keep on fighting. There aren't many of them, and most ended up in Israel after the war.

Stop being sheeple! Sheep end up socks and lamb chops. Start NOW to realize that it CAN HAPPEN HERE. It's already happening as noted above, 9/11 was our Reichstag Fire, the Patriot Act our Enabling Act, the 2001 election was stolen by the courts and the 2004 by voting machine trickery. The Bushite fascists have indeed had one singleminded goal unchanged since the 1930s and they're playing the hardest of hardball.

Eventually they will shut down the Internet or track it so effectively open dissent will be impossible. If you rely on a cell phone or credit card, they will track you. They want to put RFID chips in your passport and do you think that will stop before they try to put one IN YOU, just like the one in my cat.

Think that's extreme? In 1999, in the prosperous flush of the Internet boom with Bill "Big Dog" Clinton sitting on a surplus, did you think we'd be living in a police state in half a dozen years? That health insurance, pensions, Social Security would all be under attack? That the dollar would buy you half what it did in 1999 if you traveled abroad? That you'd have to take off your frickin' SHOES to fly????

Take that rate of acceleration of Bad Stuff and project it another 6 years and I defy ANYONE to say I'm exaggerating how bad it can get...let alone how bad it is now.

A man was SHOT DEAD in the Tube and all they can say is it's 'regrettable' but they thought he was a terrorist. They can shoot YOU and say the same thing. You have no civil liberties left if they call you a terrorist and they don't need proof. Badges? They don't need no steenking badges! Shoot first, apologize later, and you're still dead.

I'm going to live to see the bastards in the dock and on the gallows like some of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters lived to see the Nuremberg bunch and later Eichman dangle from a rope.

Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna was the asthmatic son of an Argentinian mate planter who wanted to be a doctor to help others with allergies and asthma.

On a motorcycle trip around his continent he saw all the things so eloquently described in Eduardo Galleano's "The Open Veins of Latin America" and he became a revolutionary under his nickname of "Che."

He ended his life caught in the Bolivian jungle and executed with the help of the CIA. His hands were cut off and his body buried in an unmarked grave.

He's been idolized, idealized, and demonized. What's always struck me is the asthmatic boy who just wanted to help people. Perhaps if he hadn't taken that fateful motorcycle trip he'd be a retired allergist in Buenos Aires, sipping his mate and telling bedtime stories to his grandkids. Revolution didn't come to him--he sought it out, he joined Castro. Again he could have stayed in Cuba but instead he ended up on hopeless quests like Bolivia and, earlier, the Congo (where this highly educated man was shocked to find his soldiers believed amulets with 'juju' would stop bullets; his comrade in arms Laurent Kabila later President of the Congo and also assassinated.

Unless we simply surrender to the neo-cons, revolution will come to us, in New York and San Francisco, in red states and blue, in hip college towns and redneck backwaters. Like Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, we will have choices to make about who we will become. Some of us may be lucky enough to be oldretired Doc Guevara and die in our beds. Others may die cornered in the wilderness. And some of us may win our revolution and say with Fidel Castro, once a young Catholic lawyer, "History will absolve me."

But first comes the education of the people. We are no longer the sheeple en masse as we once were. Most Americans see the Bushit for what it really is and are damn pissed off.

% years ago if you mentioned Prescott Bush and the Harriman/Dulles CIA alliances with Hitler and the nazis people would look at you crosseyed. Now they fully absorb it , many know about it, and many many understand it.

So a military strategy is counterproductive when dealing with the type of fascism that has reemerged predominant in the US today.

Intelligence and strategies for resistance nopnviolently with true revolutionary love are what is required.

Otherwise we will just be crushed and will accomplish nothing but slef-defeat.

Peace, Cassandra. I get it - but we CANNOT behave like them without becoming like them.

Organised non-cooperation isthe only way I can see. Read "A Force More Powerful" by Ackerman and Duval.They make the point that it is foolish to fight the enemy with the weapons that they choose and have superiority with.Even a max security prison will not function without cooperation. There is a critical mass effect hear, of course, and that is where military style strategic planning comes in. It has been crucial in every non violent overthrow. The "news" paints the picture that they have been spontaneous. But it ain't so.

To everyone - Like others here, I read RI every day, and try my best to catch up on the Discussion Board topics on the weekends. When I have something to post, it usually involves a salute to those courageous souls like Jeff, and his RI gang, those who take the time and effort to feed our heads (and thereby comfort our collective souls) on a daily basis.

Well done, all.

Gale, I'm glad you said you were scared. There is no better place (that I know of) to reveal it than here. I applaud your efforts to raise your children to have a positive outlook on the future. Even if there can be no certainty. In these times, the value of this community is immeasurable to one's health and well-being (well-said, AnnaLiviaPlurabelle).

To Cassandra -

While at college, I was fortunate to take a class on The Holocaust with Berel Lang, professor of Humanities (Ethics and Judaic studies), and a prolific author about the Holocaust. One of our assigned texts was Lang's 'Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide,' which Syracuse University Press calls: "A philosophical analysis of the ideology, casual patterns, and means employed in the Nazi genocide against the Jews." I recommend his work to you, if you wish to follow up with your inquiries posted here. I also include, for your reference, a portion of the book list that Lang assigned to the class. The first two are superb, and written for the lay person, whereas Lang's text is somewhat pedantic for a beginning Holocaust study reader (if that is the case).

- Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, by Christopher R. Browning- The Holocaust in History (Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry), by Michael R. Marrus- Destruction of the European Jews, by Raul Hilberg- This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Tadeusz Borowski et al- Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt

I left Arendt for last because I want to address the notion of evil, as she understood it, and because it gets at the crux of Jeff's post. Because we are not talking about conspiracy theories as much as we are talking about our disjunctive reactions to evil.

As Arendt writes: Evil is never "radical," ...it is only extreme, and... it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension... It is "thought- defying"...because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its "banality." -- Hannah Arendt, 1964 [Hannah Arendt, letter to Gershom Scholem, in Encounter (January 1964), pp. 51-56. Cited in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 369.]

In "The De-Demonization of Evil: Banality, Arendt, Sartre," a 2001 revisitation of Arendt's 'Report' on Eichmann, Ulrich Baer writes:"In the course of [her] investigation, Arendt debunked the image of the demonic Nazi because this image prevented the badly needed analysis of the 'total moral collapse' that had occurred in Germany during the war. Arendt's portrayal of Eichmann as a figure at odds with the established mold of the monstrous Nazi was considered an insult to the victims and an apology for the perpetrator."

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/5/dedemonization.php

Arendt's is a critically instructive point of view for us to consider now, when discussing Bush & Co. Moreover, it is critical for us to recognize that the same conditions of 'total moral collapse' Baer talks about already exist in America. It is a necessary, pre-existing, condition that enables the crimes of men like Eichmanns and Bush, et al, to occur. In other words, each one of Bush's henchman, handlers, enablers, and followers need not be anything more than what Adolph Eichmann was, in terms of their own personally ascribed zeal to carry out crimes against humanity. They need only be 'ordinary men.'

Who will be left, when the dust cloud clears, to make sure that justice is done (re Pastor Neimoller)?

Stay strong, people. We are in this together, even if we don't all agree on the way out.

Blessings to all, Morgan

PS: I've often marvelled at the mindmeld we seem to share here. I mention this because I spent most of the day blogging about The Holocaust. Sorry for repeats - I've trimmed it for this forum.

I don't agree we have to cede BushCo superiority in all means of resistance except nonviolence. I think they are extraordinarily vulnerable precisely because they do not expect anything beyond Letters to the Editor, pathetic Sixties style protest marches, and the occasional isolated monkeywrencher who is disavowed by his/her own side as a nut.

However, only time will tell if they have a winning hand. History bats last. I do know if we see them as invincible, they are.

Of course attitude change and nonviolent noncooperation are important tools. Unfortunately I don't think we have the time, nor do I think most Americans have the will to vote with their wallets so as to hamstring the oppressors.

I've been studying the Holocaust for 40 years, but appreciate the bibliography, as there are a couple I missed.

I've been learning a taxonomy of evil for most of my life as well, and I do not agree with Arendt on the 'banality' of evil and in fact think it is a highly pernicious concept. Evil is always radical though its outward manifestation may appear not to be. What is wrong is not seeing evil as demonic, but defining 'demonic' as having to do with a horned tailed wag tongued devil like the one on the Tarot card.

The demonic is precisely the absolute rejection of any form of human empathy and the conversion of other beings into things to be manipulated in any way the manipulator chooses.

I have looked into demonic eyes, and I can tell you that they are the same eyes that studied train schedules to figure out how to get more human beings to the place of their deaths, as much as the same eyes that randomly sic'd dogs on skeletal prisoners to be torn apart. Many of the latter type of person are in fact not evil at all, but insane or mentally substandard.

Evil eyes do not look insane or mad or any of the "Hollywood" expressions. Their expression is cool, thoughtful, and utterly terrifying in being devoid of not only of mercy, but of anything that a plea of mercy could be addressed to. Those who fit our stereotype of demonic evil are in fact not that dangerous because anyone but a total idiot says "Whoa! That's evil!" Hitler was less dangerous when he was ranting with that mad glint in his eye than when he was schmoozing with the Volk or talking to diplomats who were 'surprised' to find him so 'reasonable.'

One of the most interesting facets of evil is that while it often is aware of having been spotted, it is supremely and arrogantly convinced that its victims are hamstrung in fighting it not only by unwillingness to use its own techniques against it, but by the utter inability of most 'good' people (who are the ones who are quite banal) to even begin to grasp how the evil ones work. That's where they generally make their mistakes: underestimating their enemies.

Think about the shamans in primitive cultures. They are trained to go head to head in soul-level combat with evil, AND WIN. Those who are not strong are defeated by evil, and those who emerge as full fledged shamans pick their battles very carefully: they do not make the mistake of underestimating their opponent. For those who understand evil from the inside out BUT ARE NOT EVIL are the only ones who can take evil on and beat it. They may or may not survive the combat themselves.

For those of you who are fans of "Lord of the Rings", this is what that story is about. As Frodo says, the Shire is saved--but not for him. The knowledge he has gained makes it impossible for him to return to the simple life which would have perished if left to its own simple but inadequate forms of defense (the films blur this by eliminating the "Scouring of the Shire" chapter which is essential to understanding the meaning of Frodo's sacrifice.

While I like the often repeated quote from Pastor Neimoller, it is Dietrich Bonhoeffer whom I admire. He joined the plot to kill Hitler and he was hanged for it. I read an interview with the Dalai Lama who was asked if it is ever permissible to kill, can't someone kill to prevent the killing of innocents, and they specifically asked about killing Hitler to save the lives of his victims. The Dalai Lama said it may in that case be acceptable to kill PROVIDED it is done without hate.

It is the hate, the loss of empathy, that is the danger of meeting force with force, not the force itself. Whether it's Joshua at Jericho or Krishna advising Arjuna...my friends, sometimes it is not only necessary that we fight, it is our moral duty.

An interesting essay, Jeff ... made better by a whole bunch of interesting comments.

Regarding the dream stuff -- and considering Jeff's use of always-relevant Dylan quotes -- I think it's worth some attention. Great songwriters often dream songs. (Keith Richards and many others refer to the process as "having your antenna up.") There were two records released around 9/11 that were particularly filled with descriptions of 9/11 and the fallout: Dylan's "Love and Theft" (actually released ON Sept. 11, '01) and Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."

The Dylan record has so much tightly-wound paranoia and horror that it was hard for me to listen to it until maybe 2003. When the judge says he wants the bogeyman "dead or alive, either one, I don't care," it's like a kick in the stomach: In that one disgusted & snarled line, he accurately predicts both of Bush's reactions to the Osama bogeyman, while the country literally goes to Hell and the big flood comes.

The Wilco song "Jesus Etc." is a haunting dream-like description of the Twin Towers and the people about to die on the upper floors. And there are many many other songs on both of these pre-9/11 records that seem to be tuned to what would happen months and years later. Plus, it's great music.

A dream about something you were already thinking about is less likely to be a harbinger, but I would pay attention to those that really come out of left field and provide shocking imagery.

As for conspiracy theories, it is a shame that we're now told one of the basic habits of humanity -- from common adultery to doctored research to insider trading to whatever the hell might be happening today just below sight -- is no longer a subject for "serious" discussion, because it might lead to revelations too horrible for public consumption.

I’ve been onboard RI for only a few months, but it has taken me places that I instinctively couldn’t go, but had to in order to take the next step up the flimsy ladder for a greater viewing angle. I’m the logical type, which is easily discerned by a short peek at my blog (filboyinc.blogspot.com) but I am well aware that I must connect with intuitive types to see the blood and bones behind the flesh. Having been raised on Hitch, who introduced me to irony at the personal level, I graduated to Serling, and realized that the further into the Twilight Zone you get, the more jarring is the ironical component. Then The Prisoner stripped the glamour off the Bond archetype, and I then knew it would all eventually come home in the form of an unrelenting reality that many could see and feel, but far more too bought into the myths and legends to ever perceive. That makes us lovers in a dangerous time, and we will soon need each other in ways we could never have imagined.

As for evil, well that’s only to be called up well after the fact. The motives of those who perpetrate what is later agreed to be evil are really just projecting power, if for no other reason than to rub our noses in the fact that they can get away with it. If they happen to go to soirees where rituals accompany the acts that demonstrate their power, well this is just bonding and further points of blackmail. These people have no capability to understand or feel the pain and suffering of their victims because they are so busy relishing their projection of power, so we call them psychopaths. For those of us that are indifferent or even allergic to power, it is difficult to understand the addiction and the twisted ruins that the truly powerful always leave in their wake. For those that have the insight and the stomach for it, our calling then is to discern the ways of power and call out for collective efforts to derail it. The rest are too fearful to even leave the station, and they very much take comfort in the knowledge that they are not conspiracy theorists. They are all three monkeys at once, but replace the word evil with reality created by power.

Our living nightmare is that those of us with eyes to see and the courage to look can simply feel a massive train wreck just around the bend but we can’t seem to get to the engineer in time to stop it. It is palpable, yet entirely unfelt by the masses we try to awake to the coming disaster. Do not think it is strange that the Chinese general recently reminded the world that they will not hesitate to use nukes if molested. This was for our notice, because Washington needs no such warnings. Unless something entirely unpredictable intervenes, we will soon set the dominos afallin’, and it will be only a matter of time that they will be afallin’ on us. It will likely play out in the form of an unprovoked attack on Iran, as demanded by Cheney, and they will respond by using Russian built SS-22 “Sunburn” missiles tipped with enough of a nuclear payload to evaporate Tel Aviv and Haifa. Tehran will be smoking too, but the Zionist controlled US will respond by assaulting Russia, and the end times will be on us and Armageddon will have only been the scene of a preliminary battle.

In 1970, well after I had given up TV, I had a chance (?) encounter with the Sheriff of Jefferson County, Washington, who at 1 am asked if he could visit with me in my tiny trailer in the woods for a spell. He told me that he had been a member of the John Birch Society until Zionists infiltrated it in the mid-sixties. Originally, the focus of the JBS was to raise awareness about the NWO and had nothing to do with race . . . that came after the infiltration. He told me about the real workings of the Federal Reserve Bank and who owned it, and how it would be the vehicle for bankrupting the American Republic and turning it into the brute force that would subdue any nation that resisted takeover by the Zionist masters. He said they would not hesitate to destroy countries in order to prepare them for their fate. And that surely applies to you and me.

My belief is that our only chance to derail the plans of those absolutely corrupted and in need of an even greater power fix is to expose 911, and if the 77 myth is revealed, so much the better. But I see the very best chance for this to happen is if Patrick “Bulldog” Fitzgerald stumbles on something in one of those subpoenaed documents or conversations that alerts him to the wider field of lies that surround and precede the Iraqi and Afghani incursions. It is often a tiny thread that unravels the intricately woven fabric of lies.

My personal method has been to try to bring some small population from 'sleeping' to 'waking'. It's taken years, and only the glue of our long-term relationships to one another has kept them along for the ride long enough to get to 'waking', themselves.

"Teach a man to fish."

Once you figure out the machine is taking your livelihood and the soul of your whole town along with it, chucking your wooden shoes into it is child's play.

It's a very complicated machine, very susceptible to wooden shoes.

p.s. There was a time in my own searching life that I hit the 'conspiracy' section of the arcane book catalog and said 'snoozeville' and kept going. And there are a bunch of things that I am obliviously 'asleep' to, that another farther along than me will soon come along and irritate me about...

Thank you Mr. S, but ain't got no blog ;). I couldn't possibly do one of the quality of Rigorous Intuition! It's a privilege to be able to hang on Jeff's coattails and comment.

I only have one problem with this board...since you can click on 'Other' and choose a name, why use "Anonymous"? If Admiral Poindexter wants to find out who you are and how many freckles on your left buttcheek, he knows already :D.

Come on, this is your chance to be creative! Before choosing cassandra I considered such diverse noms de blog as...

I feel personally insulted. How "comforting" it would be to be able to turn you brain OFF to the facts and join all the rest of the 'sheeple' in believing that all we need to do is "Git dem A-rabs". How "comforting" it would be to have a clear view of WHO the enemy is. Unfortunatly when "Conspiracy Theory" came and smacked me in the face and became "Conspiracy FACT" I was by no means comforted. I came to the unpleasent realization that the people who want to kill 90% of us are not some raggedy cave-dwellers. They are, in fact, the most powerful people on this Earth and have more than the means to carry out their plans. Too many facts must be ignored to come to any conclusion other than this one, this "conspiracy theory". With so many people becoming aware of their secret plans, expect their gloves to come off. They're trying the 'easy way' for now, just wait till the 'hard way' hits us... Hows that for comforting?

"Broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and may are the ones following it. Where as narrow is the road leading to everlasting life, and few are ones finding it."

Let me tell you, understanding the true story behind any of this is anything BUT comforting. Just the opposite; the ones seeking "comfort" are the mouth-breathing retards with enormous blinders on, getting their steady morphine drip of the government "official" line. Figuring out the truth about 9/11 was creepy and sickening, definitely not comforting in the least. Regarding the iodine-Iran situation however, I am certain the cowardlition is not about to attack Iran, as America 100% lacks the bullocks and also the manpower, not to mention that its "military" in Iraq is proving daily when every time someone slams a door hard and they duck and call for air support, that they're not cut out for a REAL fight, and believe me, Iran would be a killer diller. They can't reasonably expect to be able to keep even the shorthanded worn-out force of 130,000 "troops" in Iraq for another year, let alone invading Iran. (That's why a whole different set of "rules" apply to Iran than they tried against Iraq; there's no WAY they would talk to Iran like they talked to Iraq. That's why they're talking about the non-starter issue of sanctions in the Security Council against Iran when they know China and Russia will veto it in a heartbeat, and NOT threatening Iran with military action for noncompliance). Regarding the iodine however, sadly, perhaps the most logical conclusion, judging from who caused 9/11 and after the British version Blair in such a hamfisted and obvious way is trying to ram down our throats, that Bush & company may well be planning a false-flag "Al Qaeda" "terrorist attack" in America using a nuclear weapon, perhaps to "justify" the very concentration camps someone here had a nightmare about. Think about it: they would declare martial law and start rounding up dissidents and basically anyone who they thought might know the truth.

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"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind. 13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.None from the sub-Saharan African continent. " Favor. And disfavor.

They point out Africans’ failed attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.

The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.

AIDS in Africa.

Organizational Heirarchy/Levels of positioning.Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds 5. Romans - 6. Mafia - the real-world 20th century interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality 7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.

Our society gives clues to the system in place. We all have heard the saying "He has more money than god." There is also an episode of the Simpsons where god meets Homer and says "I'm too old and rich for this."

This is the system on earth because this is the system everywhere.

I don't want to suggest the upper eschelons are evil and good is the fringe.

But they have made it abundantly clear that doing business with evil (disfavored) won't help people. They say only good would have the ear, since evil is struggling for survival, and therefore only the favored could help.

The clues are there which companies are favored and which are disfavored, but they conceal it very hard because it is so crucial.

I offer an example of historical proportions:::

People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union".Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority. Unions serve to empower.Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an enviornment where there are fewer hurdles.

Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the indistry dominated by the middle and lower classes.Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins. They all do it. Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise. So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.

The middle class is being deceived. They are being misled into the unfavored, and subsequently will have no assistance from their purchases with corporate america.

I believe the coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to just this::Sam Walton and WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.

Amercia is a country of castoffs, rejects. Italy sent its criminals, malcontents.Between the thrones, the klans and kindred, they "decided" who they didn't want and acted, creating discontent and/or starvation.The u.s. is full of disfavored rejects. It is the reason for the myriad of problems not found in European countries. As far as the Rockafellers and other industrialists of the 19th century go, I suspect these aren't their real names. I suspect they were chosen to go and head this new empire.

Royalty is the right way to organize a society. Dictatorships and monarchies are a reflection of the antient's hierarchical organization.Positions go to those who have favor with the rulers, as opposed to being elected.Elections bring a false sense of how the world is. Democracy misleads people.Which is why the disfavored rejects were sent to the shores of America::To keep them on the wrong path.

Jews maim the body formed in the image of "god", and inflicted circumsision upon all other white people, as well as the evil that is Jesus Christ. I think about how Jews (were used to) created homosexuality among Slavics, retribution for the Holocaust.Then I think of the Catholic Church and its troubles.What connection is here between Jews and the Catholic church???If it is their sinister motives that’s behind the evil that is Jesus Christ are they being used at all?Perhaps it is them who are pulling strings.Their centuries of slavery in Egypt proves their disfavor. The Jew leaders decided to prey on the up-and-coming Europeans to try to fix their problems with the ruling elite, a recurring aspect of the elite's methodology.

Jesus Christ is a religious figure of evil. The seperatist churches formed so they could still capture the rest of the white people, keeping them worshipping the wrong god.And now they do it to people of color, Latinos and Asians, after centuries of preying upon them.

Since Buddism doesn't recongnize a god, the calls are never heard, and Chinese representation is instead selected by the thrones.Budda was the Asian's Jesus Christ::: bad for the people. "They came up at the same time for a reason."

Simpson's foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. "Last one you ever suspect.""You'll see lots of nuns where you're going:::hell!!!" St. Wigham, Helloween VI, missionary work, destroying cultures.Over and over, the Simpsons was a source of education and enlightenment, a target of ridicule by the system which wishes to conceal its secrets.

I believe Islam is the one true religion, and those misled christians who attack "god"'s most favored people will pay dearly one day.

"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind. 13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.None from the sub-Saharan African continent. " Favor. And disfavor.

They point out Africans’ failed attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.

The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.

AIDS in Africa.

Organizational Heirarchy/Levels of positioning.Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds 5. Romans - 6. Mafia - the real-world 20th century interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality 7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.

Our society gives clues to the system in place. We all have heard the saying "He has more money than god." There is also an episode of the Simpsons where god meets Homer and says "I'm too old and rich for this."

This is the system on earth because this is the system everywhere.

I don't want to suggest the upper eschelons are evil and good is the fringe.

But they have made it abundantly clear that doing business with evil (disfavored) won't help people. They say only good would have the ear, since evil is struggling for survival, and therefore only the favored could help.

The clues are there which companies are favored and which are disfavored, but they conceal it very hard because it is so crucial.

I offer an example of historical proportions:::

People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union".Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority. Unions serve to empower.Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an enviornment where there are fewer hurdles.

Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the indistry dominated by the middle and lower classes.Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins. They all do it. Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise. So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.

The middle class is being deceived. They are being misled into the unfavored, and subsequently will have no assistance from their purchases with corporate america.

I believe the coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to just this::Sam Walton and WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.

Amercia is a country of castoffs, rejects. Italy sent its criminals, malcontents.Between the thrones, the klans and kindred, they "decided" who they didn't want and acted, creating discontent and/or starvation.The u.s. is full of disfavored rejects. It is the reason for the myriad of problems not found in European countries. As far as the Rockafellers and other industrialists of the 19th century go, I suspect these aren't their real names. I suspect they were chosen to go and head this new empire.

Royalty is the right way to organize a society. Dictatorships and monarchies are a reflection of the antient's hierarchical organization.Positions go to those who have favor with the rulers, as opposed to being elected.Elections bring a false sense of how the world is. Democracy misleads people.Which is why the disfavored rejects were sent to the shores of America::To keep them on the wrong path.

Jews maim the body formed in the image of "god", and inflicted circumsision upon all other white people, as well as the evil that is Jesus Christ. I think about how Jews (were used to) created homosexuality among Slavics, retribution for the Holocaust.Then I think of the Catholic Church and its troubles.What connection is here between Jews and the Catholic church???If it is their sinister motives that’s behind the evil that is Jesus Christ are they being used at all?Perhaps it is them who are pulling strings.Their centuries of slavery in Egypt proves their disfavor. The Jew leaders decided to prey on the up-and-coming Europeans to try to fix their problems with the ruling elite, a recurring aspect of the elite's methodology.

Jesus Christ is a religious figure of evil. The seperatist churches formed so they could still capture the rest of the white people, keeping them worshipping the wrong god.And now they do it to people of color, Latinos and Asians, after centuries of preying upon them.

Since Buddism doesn't recongnize a god, the calls are never heard, and Chinese representation is instead selected by the thrones.Budda was the Asian's Jesus Christ::: bad for the people. "They came up at the same time for a reason."

Simpson's foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. "Last one you ever suspect.""You'll see lots of nuns where you're going:::hell!!!" St. Wigham, Helloween VI, missionary work, destroying cultures.Over and over, the Simpsons was a source of education and enlightenment, a target of ridicule by the system which wishes to conceal its secrets.

I believe Islam is the one true religion, and those misled christians who attack "god"'s most favored people will pay dearly one day.